BUFFALO, N.Y. — The first week of April is teenage and young adult cancer awareness week. According to the National Cancer Institute, about 89,000 young people ages 15-39 are diagnosed with cancer each year.

Savannah Forell was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer about a year ago, at the age of 32.

"I was doing my monthly exam and I felt a lump. I just so happened to have my primary care appointment two weeks later. I told her about it, I didn’t want to. I was like so nervous and I told her about it and she was like ‘You’re over 30, we’re sending you,'" Forell said.

Savannah was relieved to find out what that lump really was. She started chemotherapy fairly quickly. She started researching all the different types of breast cancer. 

"I learned that my type is the most common in young people, and it is also usually associated with a genetic factor, which I don’t have the genetic factor. I also learned that our population is oftentimes kind of forgotten about," Forell said. 

Savannah says kids with cancer need so much support and love, and there’s a big gap in services for young people because the rest of the money goes to research. Savannah did 12 rounds of weekly chemotherapy, four rounds of more intense chemo every three weeks, and then she had a double mastectomy surgery. That’s when doctors tested her tumor and found that it was still active. 

"So I’m still in active treatment now because I will be going on oral chemo to just they call it clean slate, make sure everything’s removed and everything that needs to be killed is killed," she said.

She was on immunotherapy until recently. 

"In my mind, hearing my plan I would have been done by now, but today I know I have six to seven more months of treatment. It is what it is, I’m grateful that they’re being careful," Forell said.

It’s groups like Roswell Park Youth Adult program that offer Savannah comfort and support. She enjoys doing the weekly activities, like this day’s facial day, and getting to know her fellow members.

"It’s great because it’s just the support of people who get it. I don’t have to explain my anxiety, I don’t have to explain why I don’t feel well. Which, my family and friends are great, they’re so great, but there’s always going to be this level of something that ... there are things they’ll go through that I’ll never understand and this is something I’ve gone through that I know they won’t understand," Forell said.

For more information on young adult cancer support, click here.